Never Give Up
by crembrulee
Summary: This story answers a lot of big questions: What happens before Lily realizes James is her soulmate? Why is Sirius such a bachelor? What's more important to Remus his friends or his relationships? And why is Peter so freakish? Read on to find out the a
1. Potter's Crew

James stormed onto the train. Yet again, Lily Evans had humiliated him. Publicly. He threw open the compartment where his friends were sitting and sat down angrily.

"Ahh, my mind is sensing some female problems. I have a sneaking suspicion that Lily Evans is the cause of your concern, eh James?" his best friend Sirius Black said.

"I don't want to talk about it," James mumbled.

"James, we can't help you if we don't know what the problem is," Remus Lupin thoughtfully offered.

Peter Pettigrew nodded, as though this was exactly what he was thinking. (James knew better)

Remus and Peter were James' other best friends.

"It's just that, I mean, WHY DOESN'T SHE LIKE ME? It's a bloody conspiracy against James/Lily! And Lily is the leader!" James demanded.

"I have done everything I can think of to maker her believe that I really like her, and she rejects me, AGAIN!"

"Aww, man. I've told you a million times. You can have any girl you want! Why Evans?" Sirius asked.

James just glared at him.

He couldn't really answer that question anyway. There was something about Lily that drew her to him. The way her eyes lit up when she was angry… with him. Her spectacular wit, focus, and intelligence. Her amazing beauty didn't hurt either. She had captivating emerald green eyes that James could gaze into forever, fiery red hair that always curled loosely at her shoulders, and creamy, fair, flawless skin that shone in the sunlight. Even when she was angry or upset, her features stood out against the boring ones of other girls. And he would never forget her beautiful smile. She was the love of his life, but he was nothing but an irritating pest to her.

Sirius noticed the faraway look in James' eyes and said,

"James, come back to Earth. We have chocolate frogs."

At the mention of chocolate frogs, James instantly looked up excitedly. All he saw were his best friends; Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew.

Sirius Black was the biggest bachelor at Hogwarts (with the exception of Professor Dumbledore). He was extremely handsome, with long black hair that hung in his face, and entrancing gray eyes. He was fit and muscular, as he was the beater on the quidditch team and worked out with James. Sirius played the girls of Hogwarts like a simple game of Wizard's Chess. He singled out one pretty girl and made her feel like a queen. He treated her well, then dumped her two days later. After a day or so, he moved on to another girl. It was a cycle that his friends were used to.

James and Sirius had been best friends since first year, when James had helped Sirius gain popularity. James was already well liked because his parents were well known aurors, and Mr. And Mrs. Potter's friends had sons and daughters. James was friends with them. Sirius, on the other hand, was a Black. And for generations Blacks had all been sorted into Slytherin. When Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor in first year, his parents were furious. They believed that muggle borns didn't deserve any respect and didn't belong at Hogwarts. Sirius felt exactly the opposite, and rebelled against his parents by making friends with muggle borns purposely. In third year, when Sirius left home, James welcomed him into his house with open arms. Sirius and James still lived together in James' house in their fourth year at Hogwarts, and they were totally inseparable.

Remus Lupin was the most sensible of James' friends. He had short, sandy blonde hair, and blue eyes. He, like most of James' friends, was rather handsome, although once a month he came to class looking shabby and beaten up. Remus was a werewolf, and turned into one at the full moon once a month. His friends were the only ones who knew, apart from Dumbledore, and in order to help their friend, they turned into illegal animagi. Once a month, James became a stag, Sirius a giant black Labrador, and Peter turned into a rat. Apart from the hectic full moon issue, Remus had the most common sense of the group and helped keep them together. He was the one that each of the boys came to for advice, and he almost always could sort out the fights they got into. He also regulated the pranks the group played. (Somewhat.) Remus was what James called, "the glue."

Peter Pettigrew was considered the tagalong of James' group. He had mousy brown hair, beady, close together eyes, and buckteeth. Peter was short, and rather fat. He was rarely included in the group's plans, and didn't have much say in what happened. He didn't play sports, nor did he have many (or any) girlfriends. Peter practically worshipped the ground Sirius and James walked on, as they were much more popular and well liked than Peter. Remus was the only one who treated Peter the same as the other boys. Pettigrew was often close to being kicked out of the group.

James himself was very attractive too. He had extremely untidy, black hair and hazel eyes. James was also very fit, seeing as he a chaser on the quidditch team. He was the other leader of the group, along with Sirius. They both had most of the girls and most of the attention. Although James could have any woman he wanted, (that Sirius hadn't already marked) he only wanted one of them. Lily Evans. She was the girl of his dreams, but she never even pretended to like him. Everyone could see they were meant for each other but she refused to acknowledge it. Almost every day, James tried another stunt to get Lily to go out with him, but she always rejected James. Potter was stubborn though, and kept pursuing Lily. James never gave up. Ever.

Sirius, Remus and Peter supported James, even if his dreams seemed like little more than dreams sometimes. Together they were the Marauders. They created chaos and disorder, and they considered it their duty to create as much trouble as possible at Hogwarts. As much as Remus disagreed, he always ended up helping, although he never had as big of a role as Sirius or James. Over the past three years at Hogwarts, they had reeked havoc upon all their teachers and caused as much trouble as possible in three short years. Professor McGonagall was one of their favorite teachers to bother. She was their head of house and one of the strictest teachers at Hogwarts. Sirius even called her Mom.

James and Sirius were brilliant in their studies, and rarely studied for tests, much to the fury or Remus and Lily, both of whom studied until their eyes practically fell out. Peter wasn't very smart, nor did he do very well in school, and would be lucky to get a job working for the house elves in the Hogwarts kitchen. The Marauders were all bonded though, through Remus' secret. James was Prongs, Sirius was Padfoot, Remus was Moony, and Peter was Wormtail. Together, they made a map of Hogwarts under their nicknames and planned to pass it down to future troublemakers. The map showed every inch of Hogwarts, including any secret passageways that the school contained. It also showed where every person in the school was at any point in time, which made it extremely convenient when they wanted to torment their favorite victim, Severus Snape.

Snape was a Slytherin, and not at all attractive. He had extremely greasy hair and a hook shaped nose. His expression was always of fury or hatred, especially towards Sirius. Severus was very interest in the Dark Arts and was also very intelligent, excelling in most of his classes. One of Sirius' joys in life was seeing Snape grimace whenever he saw Sirius, making Snape a wonderful target for the Marauders' pranks.

"JAMES! WAKE UP JAMESIE WAMESIE!" Sirius shouted,

James lost his train of thought and glared at Sirius again.

"I'm getting that glare more and more often these days," Sirius muttered to no one in particular.

Luckily, James didn't hear, as he was too busy staring at Lily in the opposite compartment, laughing with her friends. Her smile alone made his heart melt.

"I think I know what our dear friend James here needs," Sirius said.

"It's time to plan our first prank of the school year!" he cried excitedly.

Remus and Peter groaned. We're not even at Hogwarts yet, Sirius! You're a bloody prank addict!"

Sirius just grinned like a maniac. "Now, where to start, where to start," Sirius muttered.

"5…4…3…2…1…" James murmured.

Exactly when James finished counting, Sirius shouted, "I've got it!"

The group stared, faking surprise.

"We are going to make our old pal, Snape, a girl!"


	2. New Features

Lily Evans sat down in an empty compartment and sighed. Potter had asked her out, again.

"When will he understand?" she asked quietly.

"When will who understand?" Charlie asked, a little worry in her voice.

Lily knew Charlie thought she was crazy. On more than one occasion she had caught Lily talking to herself.

"Oh my God Charlie! Look at you!" Lily exclaimed, eager to get off the subject of Potter.

"I knew it, I knew you'd think I got fat! Summer is a bitch," Charlie said, her voice getting bitter.

"Shut up, Charlie. I was talking about your gorgeous tan! You look like you spent a week in Aruba!" Lily replied.

"I think you're getting too good at divination, Lily! That's exactly where I was! Well anyway, what did you do over the summer?"

"Oh you know, the usual. Petunia is really getting moody. She spent the entire summer break up in her room, except for meals. And don't say anything, but we got into a fight, and I might've cursed her a little. She looks like a horse!"

The girls giggled at the thought of Lily's sister as a horse. When their laughter had subsided, neither could think of what to say. Lily looked up at Charlie. She was beautiful. Her tan skin was perfectly even, her gorgeous black hair was tied up in a bun on the top of her head, her sea-green eyes were practically shining, and her body was as skinny as possible without being anorexic. Lily started to feel jealous. She realized then that she was staring and quickly looked out the window. It was five minutes before the train left and Taylor still wasn't there, but Taylor was always late.

Just a minute before the train left the station, Taylor climbed into the compartment, out of breath.

"Good thing I'm in shape!" she said, bubbly as ever.

Taylor pulled out her hair tie and let her sandy blonde hair fall. It was shorter than usual, and both Charlie and Lily noticed.

"Your hair!" the two girls exclaimed together.

"I know! What do you think? Do you think Remus will like it? Oh I hope he does. I spent twenty galleons on this! Some French witch did it. Merlin, was she a pain in the,"

Taylor stopped in mid-sentence. Her navy blue eyes darted between the other two girls.

"Lily, something is going on with you. I can tell. Otherwise, you would've gasped right before I said the word ass," Taylor said, her voice getting louder when she said the last word.

Lily gasped. "Taylor! Watch your mouth! For all we know, an innocent first year could be sitting outside listening to our conversation! You could've just taught that poor child a new word."

"Oh goodness, what ever shall we do?" Charlie said sarcastically, opening her mouth wide and covering it with her hand.

Lily just glared at her.

"I'm getting that glare more and more often these days," Charlie muttered.

"So anyway, girls, anything new happened lately?" Taylor asked, blatantly trying to change the subject

"I hear that Potter asked you out again Lily. Is it true?"

"Unfortunately, yes. But who wants to talk about smelly old Potter. Let's talk about something interesting. Something like…" Lily paused, trying to think of an ending to her sentence.

"Laundry detergent?" Charlie offered.

"Ha ha, very funny. But what I had in mind was who Charlie," she paused and stared at Charlie, "is planning to court this year. Who's the lucky guy?" Lily asked.

"Well, this year, I think I've decided to stay single for a while, you know, cool down. I had too many boyfriends to count last year, you know?"

"Wonder how long that'll last," Lily muttered.

"I heard that! And since when did you learn the art of sarcasm?" Charlie asked, suddenly interested.

Lily just ignored her. She was too busy thinking about how to avoid Potter and his crew this year. She knew he would try everything from sending her anonymous (yea right) love letters to asking her in front of everyone in the Great Hall to marry him. And yet… she knew she loved the attention. When she came to Hogwarts, she thought she would be considered a freak, with her crazy red hair and bold emerald eyes. But it was the opposite, and she knew that deep inside, she loved Potter and his insane form of devotion. But she just wasn't ready to embrace that part of her that was so deep inside.

She was brought back to Earth only by the smell of Taylor's bubble gum. She was practically obsessive compulsive with her gum, like her life depended on having something to chew on constantly. Personally, Lily didn't care. She just loved the smell of cinnamon and spice. She removed all of her previous thoughts from her head and looked out the compartment door. She caught Potter staring at her in the opposite compartment, and fake laughed, as though whatever Taylor was saying was the funniest thing in the world. When Potter turned around to talk to his friends, she relaxed her mouth, it was killing her from all that fake laughing.

Taylor and Charlie stared at her, apparently worried.

"Lily, I understand if you find tampons, umm, cool, but I don't see the reason for bursting out in laughter…" Taylor said, uneasily.

Lily just smiled and laughed (for real this time). She knew this was going to be a great year.


	3. Tricks and Tears

"Sirius, that's a little too far, don't you think?" Remus said questionably.

"There's no such thing when it comes to Snivellus," Sirius said, saying the word Snivellus like he was saying the words dog poo.

"I'm all for it," James said, always up for a prank.

Peter just shoved more cheese into his mouth.

"All right, let's get this started," Sirius said, ignoring Remus' concern.

"First we have to figure out how to get Snape alone, so we can corner him without any interruptions. Next, we have to practice the spell, you know, the one that changes the gender of a person. I figured we could practice on Peter. After that, we just have to sit back and enjoy the show. Now we also have to figure out how to make it irreversible until we reverse it ourselves. Merlin knows that Snape will try ever Dark curse he knows to get rid of his new, err, features. Any questions?" Sirius said, all in one breath.

"Yea, when do we get to eat?" Peter asked, totally oblivious of the fact that he had just been offered up to be changed into a girl.

"Right, so if there's no questions we'll just get started!" Sirius said, ignoring Peter.

For the rest of the train ride, Sirius barked out orders like a general, and the plan really started to take shape. They would corner Snape leaving Defense Against the Dark Arts, when he liked to take his time packing up. (He liked to spend as much time around the teacher who knew anything about the Dark Arts, even if it was fighting it.) They would drag him into the boys' bathroom, although when they finished he would look strange coming out of that side. When they were done, Snape wouldn't even know what was going on until he looked into a mirror. His memory would be erased from after he entered the bathroom. Also, when he looked down at himself, he would only see his normal self. The way people would know it's Snape is the sign that would be hanging from his back, taped on with Spellotape. It would say Snape/Sarah. From there on out, Snape would be under the influence of an Imperius-like curse. It wasn't dark magic at all, just a bit of fun Sirius had discovered was useful. He would follow whatever orders James and Sirius said in their heads.

"Do you think we should make him do REALLY embarrassing stuff? Like walk around with the word Loser written on his forehead?" James asked, as you could see the wheels turning in his head.

"That's a good idea, James! I always knew you had it in you. But I think we can go more embarrassing. What about a run in his bra and panties, which we will have made hot pink with giant squids on them?"

"Sirius! That's way over the top. I couldn't live with myself after that!" Remus said, exasperated.

"There's no such thing as over the top!" Sirius and James said in a singsong voice in unison.

Remus grumbled to himself but wrote down his own plans. Even if he was against the prank, he could have some fun of his own, couldn't he?

When Lily, Charlie, and Taylor entered the compartment, Sirius, James, and Remus all rushed to cover the notebooks they were holding in their arms. It would be an understatement to say the girls were suspicious.

"What have you got there?" Taylor asked.

"Nothing!" the three boys said in unison. (Peter was too busy with his cheese to pay any attention.)

"Doesn't look like nothing to me," Charlie said, then stole Sirius' notebook.

The girls examined each page carefully. A few were just doodles of Sirius… doing bad things to Snape, but the ones with writing on them looked well thought out and important. Taylor, Lily, and Charlie read everything before Sirius could grab the notebook from them.

"I want in," Charlie said.

"Charlie!" Remus and Lily gasped at the same time.

"Me too," Taylor said defiantly.

"Taylor!" Remus and Lily gasped again.

"What, Lily, are you my mother now? It sounds like a cool idea. I'd love to be a part of it," Charlie stated evenly, winking at Sirius.

"Yeah! Me too!" said Taylor.

"Fine, but I'll have NO part in this delinquency, especially not this early in the school year," Lily said primly, like a queen.

Sirius gave James a look that said, why her James, WHY HER? James just shrugged and smiled.

"And Remus is with me, RIGHT REMUS?" Lily demanded.

Remus looked more uncomfortable than ever. It was impossible to tell if he had muttered a quiet "sorry Lily" or not.

Lily just stormed out of the compartment, no doubt searching for someone to listen to her whine.

"Someone needs a Midol," Sirius said accusingly. (A/N: for the uninformed; Midol is a PMS pill.)

The other two girls glared at him, he had never dealt with that "issue".

"We may want to do this prank with you, but that doesn't mean you can disrespect Lily," Taylor said, still glaring.

Sirius put his hands up and said, "Whoa, no need to hex me ladies."

"Let's just get started," Remus said, changing the subject. "You girls read the notebook right?" The girls nodded. "So you get the general picture, right? We're going to get him alone in the bathroom, perform the spell, and erase his memory. Now, I don't think you can join us in the boys' bathroom… but you can coax Snape into it. If you just pull him alone, I'm sure he'll go for it. You girls know he loves you." Remus said quickly, they were approaching the school.

"Sounds good, Remus!" the girls said together.

They all exited the train together, laughing and talking. Unfortunately, Lily walked out at the same time, and all she saw were the two girls laughing with the Marauders. She gave them a hurt look and ran off.

"Aww, jeez. Someone's gotta run after her," Charlie said. "Oh, all right. I'll go," she said reluctantly.

She followed Lily into the girls' bathroom.

"Lily, come on, is this really how you want to start off the school year?" Charlie asked, trying to say anything sarcastic.

"You tell me," Lily answered bitterly.

"Okay, well if you're going to be like this, I'll just leave you here. You can miss the feast for all I care."

Charlie knew that Lily hated not being paid attention to. She knew that about five seconds after she closed the door, Lily would run out, still sulky.

She walked out calmly and not long after heard the creaky door open and close again. Lily was coming.

When they reached the feast, Dumbledore was already giving his speech. They had missed the sorting entirely. Of course, their friends were at the very end of the table. They would have to take the late entry walk shamefully. Oh, how Charlie loathed Lily.

"Welcome girls, have a seat please," Dumbledore said pleasantly.

Oh, the shame, Charlie thought. She glared at the side of Lily's face. She knew she was trying very hard to keep a straight face.

They walked slowly, aware of every eye upon them.

When they finally reached their seats, Sirius whispered to Lily, "You have a trail of toilet paper coming off your foot."

She winced, wondering if everyone saw it. Oh yes, she was sure they did.

"Now that everyone has joined us," Dumbledore continued, "I would like to remind you that the Forbidden Forest and the seventh floor of the castle are off limits, though I feel that hasn't stopped all the wrongdoers in the past," Dumbledore said, glancing at the Marauder's end of the table at the end of his sentence. "I would also like to say that I hope this school year, everyone can be as safe as possible. As many of you already know, Voldemort is gaining power. Many people have already died, and we would like none of them to be from this school. On a lighter note, we have two new Quidditch captains of which I would like to inform you. Gryffindor's previous captain, Mr. Paul McLaggen, graduated last year, and the replacement for him will be William Wood. Slytherin also lost their captain to his eighteenth year, Mr. Rodolphus Lestrange. His replacement will be Miss Narcissa Black. (A/N: I purposely made Narcissa older than Lucius. I really like the idea of her being older and more unachievable, thus making her more desirable by Lucius.) Well enough chitchat! Tuck in, ladies and gentlemen!"

And everyone did just that. Within ten minutes, James, Sirius, Remus and Peter had eaten half the food on the table. Of course, all the bowls were refilled, but it had to have been enough food for an army.

"Where do they put it all?" Charlie asked Taylor in a jealous tone. "If I could eat like that and not gain any weight, it would be a miracle."

Lily stared up at the ceiling. She hadn't talked to anyone since she'd entered "fashionably late". Great way to start out the year Lily, good job, she told herself. She could feel the tears welling up behind her closed eyes. Thank God dessert was being cleared. As soon as Professor Dumbledore dismissed everyone, she sprinted to her dorm room, but she didn't know the password. She sat down on the floor, buried her face in her hands, and cried until her friends carried her inside.


End file.
